


If walls could talk

by mothTropic



Category: Infinity Train (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Hoarding, Oneshot, Scams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 14:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20193802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothTropic/pseuds/mothTropic
Summary: There are thousands of items in the cat's car. Oh, the stories she could tell about their acquisition...Oneshot about the cat and her many schemes.





	If walls could talk

An antique chess set, and a horse's head made of white marble. The horsehead is frozen in an expression of anger. The chess set is missing a few of its pieces.

\---

The cat frowned. One paw lingered over the white queen - one of her few remaining chess pieces. If she moved it here, she'd expose her king to the black rook. There, she'd take the rook, but the bishop would get her queen, leaving her defenseless.

She groaned, collapsing over the board with a heaving sigh. Chess pieces scattered under her calculated histrionics, falling off the table and onto the checkered ground.

"Hey," said her opponent in a slow voice. "You knocked off all the pieces."

"Oh?" The cat perked up, the picture of innocence. "I'm sorry, my dear. I'm just so clumsy - you know how it is, I'm sure." Her opponent, a horse-headed chessman on two legs, blinked at her. She'd already forgotten his name. "I'd pick up the pieces myself," the cat offered, "but, no thumbs." She held up her paws with a winning smile. She looked over at her opponent, who lacked hands entirely. He'd been moving the chess pieces with his behooved feet.

"But without the pieces, we can't finish the game," the opponent said dully.

"Oh, it's alright, kitten." The cat hopped up onto the table, rubbing against the chessman. "I suppose we just won't get to see who wins this battle of wits."

"But I have to win back my family chess set," said the knight. "Been in my family three generations." It _had_ been in his family three generations. Unfortunately for him, his aunt had been sold on a rusty pair of pliers ("Precision Chess Piece Translocation Device"), and had decided to trade in her old chess set. Her general stupidity was matched only by the cat's opponent - he had bet his whole head on a battle of wits with the cat. If he won, he'd get his chess set back.

"That is true," said the cat. "Can't quite leave without your prize. You know, I do know another game we could play."

The chessman blinked at her.

"It is a game," she announced, "of intellectual warfare. Great mind against great mind, duking it out in a battle for the ages. Only the smartest, strongest, worthiest of players can win a game..." She reached into a pocket of her vest. "...Of trivial pursuit." She pulled out a faded deck of cards. "What say you?"

"Sure," said the chessman. "I'm gonna win me that chess set."

"Wonderful!" The cat sat, and began to shuffle her cards. She placed the deck on the table, face down. It was between her and the chessman, but much closer to her. She grinned at the chessman. "May the best player win."

The chessman stared back at her. "Yeah." Then he paused. "How do I play... Trivia pursuits?"

The cat smiled. In her mind, she had already won. "Oh, it's easy," she said. "I'll pull a card from this deck, and ask you a question from it. If you get the question right, you get a little chip." She removed a small bag of colorful chips from her vest.

The chessman nodded. "Get... Chips."

"That's the spirit," cooed the cat. "Each chip represents a point. I believe if you get six points, you win." The cat had visited the trivial pursuit car a long time ago, but she'd never heard an actual explanation of the rules, only witnessed a match. Partially colorblind, she'd missed a few details.

The chessman nodded.

"Shall we play?"

"Yeah."

The cat flourished a card. She scanned the questions on it. Out of the six categories - chess, cars, robotics, space, cats, and pop trivia 1962 - there was bound to be at least one question the chessman wouldn't know the answer to. And, well, look at the guy. "Your first question," said the cat. "Is this. What is in the preceding train car?"

The chessman perked up. "I know this one," he said, to the cat's surprise. "There's... there's teacups."

The cat checked the back of the card, and scowled. "Correct," she admitted. "How _did _you know that?"

"The girl told me," said the chessman. "I think it was Tula? Tulie? Something like that."

"Oh," said the cat. "Her." The train's denizens seemed to be living self-actualized lives these days, thanks to the girl. Self-actualized lives that never seemed to involve the cat and what she was selling. It made her fur stand on end.

"Do I win a chip?" Asked the chessman.

"Huh? Err- yes. You get one chip."

"Nice," said the chessman, making a mental note. He reached his head towards the deck of cards, presumably to grab a card with his mouth.

"No, no." The cat stopped him with one paw. "These cards are rare antiques. Why don't I handle them?"

The chessman shrugged.

"Wonderful. Now, I believe the question you were going to ask me was... how many squares are on a chess board? And, I believe the answer was sixty-four." The cat flipped the card over to check the answer. "Oho, I'm right. That's a chip for me."

"And for you." The cat drew yet another card. "Which spacecraft set off for Jupiter in 1972?"

"What's a spacecraft?"

"Ooh." The cat winced. "The correct answer was actually 'The Pioneer 10'."

"Dang."

"Now for me - what is the color one gets when one combines black and white?" The cat barely waited for her own response. "Grey. And I get a chip, as well."

The chessman nodded politely. He'd never seen this mythical "grey" before. Only black and white. He felt out of his depth.

"Card for you again." The cat squinted at the card, looking over 'how does a knight move in chess,' 'what is the name of the car you are currently in', 'are robots real', and... Ah. The cat cleared her throat. "What was the number one song in January, 1962?"

"That's easy," said the chessman. "Same song that's always been number one. The Chess Board Shuffle."

"Ah," said the cat. "I agree with you, of course, dear, but this card has other plans. The number one song was actually the... the Peppermint Twist, by... Joey D. and The Starlighters."

The knight blinked. He had no idea what peppermint was. "This doesn't seem fair," he said.

"Doesn't it? Here, let me ask myself a question." Another trivia card. "Who moves first in a chess game? Gee, I'm not sure." The cat tossed the card over her shoulder, and turned to the chessman. "Well," she said. "I recently got a question I didn't know the answer to. And if I got a question I don't know the answer to, it can't be unfair. Can it?"

"...I guess not."

"Wonderful. Anyway: what is Asimov's zeroth law of robotics? Exact answers only."

And so the game went on. The cat continued to rack up chips, deliberately giving herself the easiest questions. The chessman floundered when asked things like 'Who was America's first chess champion?' Neither the chessman nor the cat knew what America was, for that matter, though there was likely an America car somewhere on the train.

Despite all this, the chessman was making progress. The cat often failed to find a question easy enough to answer, despite her best efforts. And the chessman knew more than he let on.

The score was 5-5. The cat had switched from a lazy sprawl in her chair to a concentrated lean forward. The chessman had not moved, though he'd sat up a little straighter. He was going to win his family chess set back.

"Card for you," said the cat. "Think I'll ask..." The cat pursed her lips. "Look at that. You get an easy one this time."

"Alright."

She sighed deeply. "Name an animal that has four legs and is a feline."

"Four legs," mused the chessman. "Cat?"

"Correct," the cat muttered. Her whiskers twitched. She reached into the bag of chips to get one for the chessman. "Oh my!" she said suddenly. "I'm so sorry, my dear, but we've run out of one point chips."

"What?"

"The chips that represent your score, we're out of chips that are just one point. But I do have this five point chip here." The cat brandished a nondescript chip, placing it in the pile with the chessman's other chips.

"Now," she said, "since you got this five point chip here, you should get rid of your five one point chips." The cat pushed five of the chessman's other chips into a new, separate pile.

"Wait-"

"You're right, my dear, I nearly forgot about your chip for answering this question correctly." The cat made a deft gesture. "So I'll take one of the one point chips from this pile-" she motioned to the pile with the five chips in it- "and put it in your pile."

"Okay..."

"But!" The cat exclaimed. "That doesn't add up."

"Doesn't it?"

"No," said the cat, quickly jumping onto the table and blocking the knight's pile from view. "Because if there's six points of chips in your pile, and four points in the other pile, that means you got rid of four points and ended up with six."

"Well-"

"So you started with ten points."

"Wait, I-"

"Yes." The cat seemed rather pleased with herself. "Four plus six is ten."

"But I..."

"Let me go over it again. You started with ten pieces. You put four of them in this pile, getting rid of them. And now you have six." The cat waved a paw over the chessman's pile, as if to say "look. Six pieces."

The chessman nodded. Her math hurt his brain.

"But you've only been awarded six points by this game," said the cat. "So you must have cheated to get those ten points."

"What? But I didn't cheat," the chessman protested. He stood up.

"You did," insisted the cat. "And cheating is an automatic forfeit." She began to pack up her new chess set, watching the chessman carefully. "Now, I believe you owe me a head?"

The chessman frowned. "I don't owe you my head," he said. "I didn't cheat."

"You aren't backing out, are you?" Asked the cat. "Where is your sportsmanship?"

The cat took a good look at the chessman's head. It was a horse's head, and marble. There was a visible line between the chessman's head and the rest of his body. The cat slunk back, placing the chess set on the ground nearby. Then, she crouched and sprung at the chessman, knocking his head off his body. It stiffened in her paws. The rest of the chessman remained animate, though. His voice was coming from somewhere inside his chest.

"Give that back," he seemed to be saying. "'S not yours, you didn't win it, this isn't fair." He thrust himself towards the cat, thrashing wildly. She grabbed her chess set with one arm and ran.

"I've got a question for you," she yelled back at him. She ran towards a pillar.

"Eh?" The chessman was gaining on her.

"Where did I park my shuttlecraft?" She ducked behind the pillar.

"Where did you- huh?"

The cat slipped into her shuttlecraft, slamming the door. She took off, leaving the headless chessman behind.

The cat grinned down at the horse head in her lap, putting it off to the side. She had just the place for it in her car.  
  



End file.
